Toby Tyler Or Ten Weeks with a Circus Part 10

A seat had been placed by the side of the one intended for Toby for the accommodation of Mr. Stubbs, who suffered a napkin to be tied under his chin, and behaved generally in a manner that gladdened the heart of his young master.

Mr. Treat cut generous slices from the turkey for each guest, and Mrs.

Treat piled their plates high with all sorts of vegetables, complaining, after the manner of housewives generally, that the food was not cooked as she would like to have had it, and declaring that she had had poor luck with everything that morning, when she firmly believed in her heart that her table had never looked better.

After the company had had the edge taken off their appet.i.tes--which effect was produced on the sword-swallower only after he had been helped three different times, the conversation began by the Fat Woman asking Toby how he got along with Mr. Lord.

Toby could not give a very good account of his employer, but he had the good sense not to cast a damper on a party of pleasure by reciting his own troubles; so he said, evasively,

"I guess I shall get along pretty well, now that I have got so many friends."

Just as he had commenced to speak the skeleton had put into his mouth a very large piece of turkey--very much larger in proportion than himself--and when Toby had finished speaking he started to say something evidently not very complimentary to Mr. Lord. But what it was the company never knew; for just as he opened his mouth to speak, the food went down the wrong way, his face became a bright purple, and it was quite evident that he was choking.

Toby was alarmed, and sprung from his chair to a.s.sist his friend, upsetting Mr. Stubbs from his seat, causing him to scamper up the tent-pole, with the napkin still tied around his neck, and to scold in his most vehement manner. Before Toby could reach the skeleton, however, the Fat Woman had darted toward her lean husband, caught him by the arm, and was pounding his back, by the time Toby got there, so vigorously, that the boy was afraid her enormous hand would go through his tissue-paper-like frame.

"I wouldn't," said Toby, in alarm; "you may break him."

"Don't you get frightened," said Mrs. Treat, turning her husband completely over, and still continuing the drumming process. "He's often taken this way; he's such a glutton that he'd try to swallow the turkey whole if he could get it in his mouth, an' he's so thin that 'most anything sticks in his throat."

"I should think you'd break him all up," said Toby, apologetically, as he resumed his seat at the table; "he don't look as if he could stand very much of that sort of thing."

But apparently Mr. Treat could stand very much more than Toby gave him credit for, because at this juncture he stopped coughing, and his face fast a.s.sumed its natural hue.

His attentive wife, seeing that he had ceased struggling, lifted him in her arms, and sat him down in his chair with a force that threatened to snap his very head off.

"There!" she said, as he wheezed a little from the effects of the shock, "now see if you can behave yourself, an' chew your meat as you ought to!

One of these days when you're alone you'll try that game, and that'll be the last of you."

"If he'd try to do one of my tricks long enough he'd get so that there wouldn't hardly anything choke him," the sword-swallower ventured to suggest, mildly, as he wiped a small stream of cranberry-sauce from his chin and laid a well-polished turkey-bone by the side of his plate.

"I'd like to see him try it!" said the fat lady, with just a shade of anger in her voice. Then turning toward her husband, she said, emphatically, "Samuel, don't you ever let me catch _you_ swallowing a sword!"

"I won't, my love, I won't; and I will try to chew my meat more,"

replied the very thin glutton, in a feeble tone.

Toby thought that perhaps the skeleton might keep the first part of that promise, but he was not quite sure about the last.

It required no little coaxing on the part of both Toby and Mrs. Treat to induce Mr. Stubbs to come down from his lofty perch; but the task was accomplished at last, and by the gift of a very large doughnut he was induced to resume his seat at the table.

The time had now come when the duties of a host, in his own peculiar way of viewing them, devolved upon Mr. Treat, and he said, as he pushed his chair back a short distance from the table, and tried to polish the front of his vest with his napkin,

"I don't want this fact lost sight of, because it is an important one: every one must remember that we have gathered here to meet and become better acquainted with the latest and best addition to this circus, Mr.

Toby Tyler."

Poor Toby! As the company all looked directly at him, and Mrs. Treat nodded her enormous head energetically, as if to say that she agreed exactly with her husband, the poor boy's face grew very red and the squash-pie lost its flavor.

"Although Mr. Tyler may not be exactly one of us, owing to the fact that he does not belong to the profession, but is only one of the adjuncts to it, so to speak," continued the skeleton, in a voice which was fast being raised to its highest pitch, "we feel proud, after his exploits at the time of the accident, to have him with us, and gladly welcome him now, through the medium of this little feast prepared by my Lilly."

Here the Albino Children nodded their heads in approval, and the sword-swallower gave a grunt of a.s.sent; and, thus encouraged, the skeleton proceeded:

"I feel, when I say that we like and admire Mr. Tyler, all present will agree with me, and all would like to hear him say a word for himself."

The skeleton seemed to have expressed the views of those present remarkably well, judging from their expressions of pleasure and a.s.sent, and all waited for the honored guest to speak.

Toby knew that he must say something, but he couldn't think of a single thing; he tried over and over again to call to his mind something which he had read as to how people acted and what they said when they were expected to speak at a dinner-table, but his thoughts refused to go back for him, and the silence was actually becoming painful. Finally, and with the greatest effort, he managed to say, with a very perceptible stammer, and while his face was growing very red:

"I know I ought to say something to pay for this big dinner that you said was gotten up for me, but I don't know what to say, unless to thank you for it. You see I hain't big enough to say much, an', as Uncle Dan'l says, I don't amount to very much 'cept for eatin', an' I guess he's right. You're all real good to me, an' when I get to be a man I'll try to do as much for you."

Toby had risen to his feet when he began to make his speech, and while he was speaking Mr. Stubbs had crawled over into his chair. When he finished he sat down again without looking behind him, and of course sat plump on the monkey. There was a loud outcry from Mr. Stubbs, a little frightened noise from Toby, an instant's scrambling, and then boy, monkey, and chair tumbled off the platform, landing on the ground in an indescribable ma.s.s, from which the monkey extricated himself more quickly than Toby could, and again took refuge on the top of the tent-pole.

Of course all the guests ran to Toby's a.s.sistance; and while the Fat Woman poked him all over to see that none of his bones were broken, the skeleton brushed the dirt from his clothes.

All this time the monkey screamed, yelled, and danced around on the tent-pole and ropes as if his feelings had received a shock from which he could never recover.

"I didn't mean to end it up that way, but it was Mr. Stubbs's fault,"

said Toby, as soon as quiet had been restored, and the guests, with the exception of the monkey, were seated at the table once more.

"Of course you didn't," said Mrs. Treat, in a kindly tone. "But don't you feel bad about it one bit, for you ought to thank your lucky stars that you didn't break any of your bones."

"I s'pose I did," said Toby, soberly, as he looked back at the scene of his disaster, and then up at the chattering monkey that had caused all the trouble.

Shortly after this, Mr. Stubbs having again been coaxed down from his lofty position, Toby took his departure, promising to call as often during the week as he could get away from his exacting employers.

Just outside the tent he met Old Ben, who said, as he showed signs of indulging in another of his internal laughing spells:

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOBY SITS DOWN ON MR. STUBBS.]

"h.e.l.lo! has the skeleton an' his lily of a wife been givin' a blow-out to you too?"

"They invited me in there to dinner," said Toby, modestly.

"Of course they did--of course they did," replied Ben, with a chuckle; "they carries a cookin'-stove along with 'em, so's they can give these little spreads whenever we stay over a day in a place. Oh, I've been there!"

"And did they ask you to make a speech?"

"Of course. Did they try it on you?"

"Yes," said Toby, mournfully, "an' I tumbled off the platform when I got through."

"I didn't do exactly that," replied Ben, thoughtfully; "but I s'pose you got too much steam on, seein' 's how it was likely your first speech.

Now you'd better go into the tent an' try to get a little sleep, 'cause we've got a long ride to-night over a rough road, an' you won't get more'n a cat-nap all night."

"But where are you going?" asked Toby, as he s.h.i.+fted Mr. Stubbs over to his other shoulder, preparatory to following his friend's advice.

"I'm goin' to church," said Ben, and then Toby noticed for the first time that the old driver had made some attempt at dressing-up. "I've been with the circus, man an' boy, for nigh to forty years, an' I allus go to meetin' once on Sunday. It's somethin' I promised my old mother I would do, an' I hain't broke my promise yet."

"Why don't you take me with you?" asked Toby, wistfully, as he thought of the little church on the hill at home, and wished--oh, so earnestly!--that he was there then, even at the risk of being thumped on the head with Uncle Daniel's book.

"If I'd seen you this mornin' I would," said Ben; "but now you must try to bottle up some sleep agin to-night, an' next Sunday I'll take you."